Chief Bear Trapper of Denver International Airport

Another recent security breach

Denver being situated at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, one would think that the primary concern for the DIA Homeland Security would be grizzlies. Wrong and double wrong. The truth of the matter is that DIA is so rife with bears of all species that if Homeland Security were to occupy themselves with the constant onslaught of the Ursidae family, they would have no time for wanding travellers and looting luggage. That’s why Jeannie-Fayelene Bakker (my personal bodyguard) and I were brought in to establish effective defenses.

The first order of business was to construct a bear stand with clear views of the surrounding countryside (those of you who have flown in or out of DIA will easily recognize our bear stand, as we disguised it as a traffic control tower) and high-powered telescopes for identifying potential insurrectionist clans tucked away in the high caves of the Rockies. Jeannie-Fayelene is nothing short of a master in the field of Ursa Activities, having spent much of her 20s making a living as a traveling bear wrestler. Thus, when she sees a bear ripping the guts from a trout with its powerful jaws, she knows an attack is imminent and gives the go-ahead to fire the long-range ballistic missiles.

Next, it was vitally important that we design a uniform. After all– we needed something that would clearly identify us to air travelers as public safety personnel, but would also leave us somewhat inconspicuous to the bears themselves. After three weeks of toiling, and many a delivery of fish-head soup, we lit upon the solution– bear suits. The problem with this, of course, was obtaining bear pelts that hadn’t been entirely decimated by our security efforts. We brainstormed yet another week and determined that in the interest of long-term public safety, it was necessary to allow the bears to breach the tarmac so that we may get close enough to mar the hide with a single bullet hole or a clean sword swipe. We put the safeties on our weaponry but remained vigilant. We wouldn’t have to wait long.

We saw the bears massing– Asian black and American grizzly, Sloth and Sun, Etruscan and Auvergne– and steeled ourselves, ready to play our parts in this ancient and epic struggle between hominid and caniform. It was a fateful morning in September when the bears attacked. It was the two of us against thousands, as our hired mercenaries deserted when they saw the surging ranks of the enemy. But we were not afraid. We knew that we had god and Krampus on our side. With a pistol of righteousness in one hand and a sword of vengeance clamped in my teeth, I fought long into the night. Though nearly 600 passengers were lost, and bears absconded with three commercial jetliners, in the end it was the bears who bellowed the “Retreat!” call.

Unfortunately, airport officials refused to approve our uniform design, citing “insensitivity to the recent bear-related tragedies” as their sole reason. It was that brush with the mediocritizing wheels of bureaucracy that led to our joint resignations from the post. We hear the latest scheme for security is a border fence around airport property. As if a bear would be deterred by electrified razor wire!

More to the point, this incident was how Jeannie-Fayelene Bakker lost an eye and gained a beautiful four-claw scar across her face, and how I would up with three peg fingers.